Seoul hopeful of solution to nuclear stand-off

South Korean soldiers mark the 55th anniversary of the founding of the country's armed forces.
Photo: Reuters

South Korea yesterday talked up hopes for a diplomatic solution to the North Korean nuclear crisis, while at the sametime making an unusual and pointed display of its military might.

In a speech to mark the country's armed forces day, President Roh Moo-hyun said a peaceful resolution of the crisis was the "utmost task".

Pyongyang has warned that it may not take part in another round of six-country talks on the crisis.

But Mr Roh said he expected the talks "will be held in due time and will produce good results".

Significantly, his positive assessment came as South Korea unveiled new military hardware - part of the country's fall-back position should talks fail.

In a clear message to North Korea, Seoul ended five years of a low-key approach to public displays of its firepower with a big military parade.

The parade included new Popeye missiles.

Mr Roh also pledged that his country's already formidable forces would be boosted further with "cutting-edge technologies".

"The time has come for us to assume the core responsibility for our national defence," he said.

"It is beyond question that as an independent nation, a nation should have enough strength to defend itself on its own."

While emphasising the 50-year alliance with US forces stationed in South Korea, Mr Roh said South Koreans should now take a leading defence role - a move that Washington has encouraged. North Korea left the world guessing this week after a new barrage of rhetoric, in which the North has threatened not to take part in more talks, despite agreeing to do so when the first round ended in Beijing in late August.

After warnings carried by its official news service, North Korea told the United Nations General Assembly yesterday that it did not have "any interest or expectation" in more talks.

We just want both sides to drop guns simultaneously and co-exist peacefully. CHOE SU-HON, North Korea Vice-Foreign Minister

North Korea's Vice-Foreign Minister, Choe Su-hon, blamed the "hostile" policy of the US for the doubt that now surrounds the negotiations.

Mr Choe said Pyongyang had proposed a deal at the talks, which provided a "comprehensive and fair" solution to the crisis. The deal involved a "step by step" process, he said.

Under the deal, North Korea would give up its nuclear ambitions in return for US action, including a security guarantee.

But Mr Choe said the US had demanded that North Korea first abandon its nuclear program, and had indicated it was not interested in providing a security guarantee.

He told the General Assembly that with North Korea and the US "levelling guns at each other, asking the other party to put down the guns first does not make any sense".

"Our demand is modest and simple," he said. "We just want both sides to drop guns simultaneously and co-exist peacefully."

The other countries involved in the talks - the US, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia - now must decipher whether the warnings are real or simply a typical North Korean negotiating position. Moves have started to have the next round of talks convened.

"We're hoping to have something within next month or the next five or six weeks," US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly said after meeting Japanese and South Korean officials in Tokyo.

Mr Roh added that a decision on whether to send combat troops to Iraq, which Washington has sought, hinged in part on security on the peninsula, where 37,000 US troops help the 690,000-strong South Korean forces deter the communist North.